SALEM — City council discussed an ordinance updating the city’s compensatory time policy in its March 4 meeting.

Mayor Cyndi Baronzzi explained that under the city’s current policy the city’s non-represented employees can carry over 160 hours of compensatory time into the new year, and anything beyond that is paid out in December. However, this results in some city employees reaching that maximum early in the year and causing future hours to be paid out as soon as they are earned rather than being available for employees to use for time off later in the year.

“What happens now is that it is paid out after a certain limit in that first pay of December and you can only carry over 160 hours if you’re a non-bargaining employee. Some of our workers when there’s snow or big projects in the first part of the year, they may carry over the max 160 hours but the minute they get another one payroll was paying it out because they were over the limit,” said Dickey.

Dickey said that back when she was a member of city council, that the council had intended to update the policy to allow these employees to accrue and use time over the 160 hours maximum throughout the year but that through some oversight the change had never been officially made.

“The discussion we had previously was not to do that, it was to allow them to carry over the 160 and start accumulating it for the next year and by the end of the next year in that first period of December anything hadn’t used would get paid out if they desired or they could have used it for time off during the year,” said Dickey. “For instance, in our street department a lot of those employees, if they’d had a big snow in February would have lost that time and not been able to take it during the nice weather and we didn’t want to do that to them, that doesn’t benefit anybody. We want to let them use that time when they have time to take not during a snow emergency so we would like to change that to allow them to carry over the 160 and be able to accumulate it beyond that, at the end of the next year if they haven’t used that or haven’t had it cashed out they would get paid for anything over 160 again.”

Dickey said that the change would not cost the city anything more than it is already paying, and that it would actually benefit the city as it would allow that money to remain in the city’s account longer.

While immediate passage with the emergency clause was discussed, the ordinance was ultimately given only its first reading.

Other legislative matters included approval of a resolution authorizing Fire Chief Scott Mason to apply for a grant of $54,729 from the Salem Community Foundation for the purchase of a LIFEPAK 35 cardiac monitor and defibrillator. Mason explained that the department had been approached with an opportunity to purchase the unit at an approximately $6,000 discount as part of a bulk order for several departments through University Hospital.

During her report Dickey announced that the city’s application for a revitalization district had been approved on Jan. 10, and during his report City Law Director Brooke Zellers explained that the city had been authorized for up to 15 D-5L licenses within the district which would allow a business to sell alcohol from 5:30 a.m. to 2:30 a.m.

“The licenses are approved; they have given us the mechanism for people to already apply for those licenses so they can get them now. We already have one business that has started this process,” said Zellers.

During his report Councilman Andrew Null announced that the committee of the whole would meet prior to city council’s next meeting at 6 p.m. March 18.

City Council will meet next at 7 p.m. March 18.